DAVID T. CHASTAIN
"David T. Chastain just may be the hardest working in the heavy metal business, and it's
fianlly starting to pay off." MUSICIAN MAGAZINE
The above-quoted statement may well be true. Guitarist David T. Chastain
simultaneously fronts two bands--CJSS and Chastain--and between the two has
released five albums within two years. Now, the Cincinnati-based musician is
dazzling fans and music enthusiasts alike with his debut solo instrumental
record, Instrumental Variations. The nine-song LP showcases the brilliant
axe-man-ship and
songwriting talents of the man the international rock press has dubbed the
next mega guitar hero.
To say this hard rock Renaissance Man is prolific
would be an understatement. In addition to writing all the songs on the LP,
Chastain plays all the guitar, bass, and Kurzweil parts, served as producer,
and oversaw the album's coordination and cover artwork.
Ken Mary--who handled
drums for the last two Chastain group LPs--went into the studio to play on
this album when he got home from touring and recording with Alice Cooper.
Instrumental Variations has been in planning for six years. When Chastain
first hooked up with Heavy Metal veteran Mike Varney in 1981, this was to be
their first project. "It's something I always wanted to do, but was too
busy," confides the guitarist. So, following the lead of the first song of
the record--"Now Or Never"--the decision was made to record the
all instrumental LP when the musician came off a tour with his Chastain
band.
"I've always enjoyed doing instrumentals," he says. "To introduce fans
to my instrumentals, I've included one track on each one of the last two LPs
(CJSS' Praise the Loud and Chastain's The 7th Of Never)." Chastain came up
with the title LP "to let everyone know it is an instrument record right off
the bat," and feels that the album is "very diverse. I made sure the songs
did not all sound alike. Even though the record is mostly Metal oriented,
there are traces of fusion, classical, rock, blues and thrash mixed together
to form a very unique sound. On the whole, this LP is a lot more varied than
other instrumental LPs out now."
For the first time, Chastain recorded some
of the guitars in his at-home studio. The rest of the guitars, and the bass
parts, were recorded at Cincinnati's Counterpart Creative Studios, and the
Kurzweil synthesizer parts and Mary's drums were captured on tape in
Seattle, WA's Steve Lawson's Studio. This is also where Terry Date (who was
responsible for the last two Metal Church LPs) did the mixing. Instrumental
Variations marks the sixth album within two-and-a-half years for the busy
musician. How does feel he's grown within that time? "I'm a lot better
player now, and I keep getting better," he reveals. "As a matter of fact,
two of the songs on the LP are updated versions of tunes I had originally
planned to put on that record six years ago, but I changed the internal
parts of those cuts for the better."
When some artists take years between
albums, how does Chastain manage to keep putting out creative releases so
frequently? "Time is irrelevant," he feels. "Either you can write a good
song, or you can't. It takes some artists two years to write nine good
songs, but not me. It's a matter of the quality of your output. Also, it's
how much time you devote to your art. With me, it's my main priority. My
whole existence is based around writing songs and putting out albums," he
confesses. "If I toured as much as some artists, it would take me longer,
too. But I've always written songs and put them on tape in my home studio.
Somewhere I've tapped an internal creative river. I could write three, four
songs tonight!"
Chastain has been known to pick up a guitar anywhere,
anytime, and create. It's truly that just one week from the first time he
picked up a guitar and began to play seriously, he joined his first band.
"We did original material," he recalls. "I didn't pick up a guitar to play
Kiss or Led Zeppelin or whatever was 'cool,' but to create my own music, I
was always doing lots of original music. I wrote prose and song lyrics even
before I could play." Chastain's home is filled with "tapes and tapes and
tapes--there's always been a massive quantity of original material flowing
through me."
The guitarist has a library of cassette recordings documenting
his musical growth with everything from song snippets to completed
compositions. "I have no idea how many songs I've written," he laughs. "On
tape, I've got about 500 tunes, fully recorded with a band." As with most
musicians, Chastain admits that "for every album we record, there's a
throw-away factor. Usually we have 30 to 40 tunes prepared, and choose about
nine per LP. Sometime I might fall back on those that didn't make it onto
a Cd and use them again somewhere down the line."
Recording this solo album
will not deter Chastain from future recordings with either CJSS or Chastain.
"I only plan on one instrumental LP every great while," he
states. "I'm not planning on making every third record an instrumental one.
If it outsells the others massively, I may reconsider, but right now I have
no plans to do but one every two or three years."
Since both his groups rely
so heavily on Chastain's musical virtuosity, how does his playing on
Instrumental Variations differ from previous efforts? "This is the time for
the guitar to shine. Also, there's a couple of areas here that I've not
played in other LPs I can be more musically complex when I'm not thinking
about the vocals, but I could put vocals on a couple of the songs if I had
to. 99% of the time, the music comes first when I write, and the vocals
usually come last," he reveals. Saying that "I feel each album is getting
better."
Chastain picks out a few tunes off Instrumental Variations to talk
about. "Capriccio In E Minor' is from the six-year-old tape and is just what
the title means; it's Italian for a lively instrumental. "'Wild And Truly
Diminished' is in answer to a lot of guitar heroes who play scales which
they think are diminished scales but are really only half diminished. No one
seems to play the half tones. It's very odd scale, it's a cool scale, and
people are leaving out half of it. " 'Spontaneous Combustion'
happened after we recorded at my house and I saw that we needed another
song. I wanted it to sound like a live band with only guitar, bass and drums
and at the same time, to sound like a live jam. 'Now Or Never' came from my
live solo on stage. I may play this tune in concert, depending on the
popularity of the record and the audience's reception. 'Horizons' is the
most futuristic piece on the LP. It's about my horizons, what I see for
myself way in the future."
And what would Chastain like to see in that
future? "I wish I could tap my brain to a musical computer," he confides,
"because I have lots of ideas flowing through my head that I can't play or
put down on tape. They're very classically oriented and I can't perform them
on guitar, but they're up there in my imagination."
Maybe in time, we'll
get to hear them all. Meanwhile, music lovers will have content themselves
with the new sounds Chastain has created for Instrumental Variations, and
wait for the imminent release of his next group project. It should prove to
be time well spent.
2013 ***************** Original
